We had some bad weather Saturday night, with rain blowing sideways for a time. I was sure that my tent, up in the backyard, would be flooded but it wasn’t. There was, however, a tornado that touched down not many miles from us during the storm, and a tree across the street from us split, falling across the road and into our yard.
What did make me smile was a couple hours of paddling on a lake with one of my college roommates. We don’t see each other very often, but it’s always a good time when we do.
We caught up with each other’s lives, her kids, my dog.
And we enjoyed a sweet after the storm breeze, bright blue skies and sunshine as we floated across the water.
You just can’t beat being on the water for giving yourself a pick-me-up.
So that’s my smile for this week. What made you smile?
The county fair is back. The fairground is in my tiny town, a little over a mile from the house. When Katie and I camp in the backyard during fair week we can hear the monster trucks, the announcer, the fireworks, the roar of the crowd.
What do you think is the best part about a fair…the food? Or the rides?
The noise doesn’t bother me, it’s only for one week and it’s the epitome of summer in the midwest. I have so many memories of the county fair, not this one, but the one we used to go to when we were kids.
Food? Or rides?
Which pretty much is exactly like the one I wandered this week. Big barns full of rabbits, goats, chickens, cows, and sheep waiting with their young person for their turn in the ring to be judged. Another barn full of sewing, knitting, canning, flower arrangements, and artwork, each a project of some young person, some with ribbons already attached.
Maybe the best thing is the games, though nobody really wins anything. Do they?
I was a 4-H kid in the 60s. I knit, mostly because I hated sewing which seemed to be my other option. Each year I entered a misshappen sweater at the fair. I think sometimes I won a ribbon, but I don’t remember.
The excitment that only the young can experience on these things.
I also don’t remember riding the midway rides, though I’m sure we did. We probably had some number of rides budgeted. We sure didn’t have free reign to ride as many and as often as we wanted.
I bet their hearts were beating fast while they swung in the darkness.
This year I noticed that there were bracelets available that let you into everything at the fair. All the rides, the shows, and who knows what else. They were $25.00 each.
How many funnel cakes can you buy with $25?
I don’t think I’d be able to ride enough to make that purchase worthwhile. Not without throwing up at least once. And there’s no way my folks would have sprung for a wrist band, even if there had been such a thing back then, for all four of us kids.
The Sizzler sizzled into the night.
Nope, I’m sure we could pick out one ride that we wanted to do and that was probably it.
Maybe the best part of a fair is just spending time with your friends.
But I do remember a booth where you could drop paint onto a spinning canvas, then you got to take your creation home. I had that painting for years. That was probably 50 years ago and it’s the most vivid memory I have of the county fair growing up. It still makes me smile.
I think I could ride this one.
We don’t go to the county fair every year these days, even though it is right in our town. And of course last year there was no fair.
Or maybe not.
So it’s been a long time since I’ve gone. But this year it seemed like a celebration of the return of something fundamental, and I looked forward to going back for a walk around.
There’s no calories in cotten candy. Right?
Wednesday evening turned out to be the moment, and I arrived just as the sun was going down on a hot afternoon.
This ride might be safe for me.
Most of the families with little kids looked exhausted. Many of them were leaving, but the young people were just arriving. I was there to mess around with the camera once it got dark and the midway lit up.
At least you could get your vegetables.
It’s not a big fair, it takes only minutes to see everything. But with each round I made I saw different images. I should have had a tripod, but I didn’t want to haul anything extra.
Ride this one before you eat any of the fair food.
All of these shots were handheld, most of the time letting the camera choose the ISO. Sometimes I delibertaly made the exposure longer to blur the lights. That was the most fun, just to see what came through.
Add the moon and it was a pretty special night.
Mostly I was there to have some fun, just like all the rest of the folks standing in lines for rides and food. It’s just my idea of fun involves more about the camera and less hanging upside down from a midway attraction.
Round and around they go.
But if I was 50 years younger I might just have tried those flying swings. I think even my stomach could have handled that.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve captured quite a lot of goings on in my backyard.
My husband gets all the attention, but I’m more beautiful if you take the time to look.
These are the kinds of things I never got to watch when I was going to work every day.
I should take some of this back to the missus.
The kinds of things I always imagined were going on and wished I could wittness for myself.
This place has the best drinks.
So I’m feeling quite lucky that I’m around to enjoy the fun stuff happening right outside my windows.
I swear this kid eats like a horse.
I hope you feel lucky to see it all too.
It can stop raining any time now.
In fact, I don’t have more words to fill the spaces, so I’ll just pile on the images.
Pink brings out my feminine side.
I’m sure you won’t mind.
Do you think this peanut is too big for my mouth?
Enjoy.
I’m just a kid, can someone tell me where the best diners are?No tree is going to outshine my colors!My preferred food does not appear to be in the feeder lady!You’re going to fix that – – right?Well if I’m going to be ignored I’ll just turn my back on you… you’re watching, right?A mother’s work is never done.Doing my pilates.I’m ready for my post-workout massage now.
I hope you are grinning now. I do every day, there’s always something going on out there.
I recognize that not everyone has a National Cemetery close at hand to visit. And I know I just shared with you the one near me.
It’s a new day.
But that was before volunteers placed flags on the graves of our veterans. Flags that glow when the sun is just rising on the Sunday before Memorial Day.
Adding color to the memories.
And because you couldn’t all get there I decided to go for you, and for me, to see those glowing flags and reflect for a moment or two what it all means.
Our local version of Arlington.
What does it mean, on this Memorial Day weekend, that so many people are on opposite sides of so many issues leaving no middle ground to talk?
Row upon row of lifetimes.
Yet, both sides profess to love this country, a country that allows for differences of opinions. Just, apparently, not those opinions so different than our own.
Nature’s flyover.
When you walk among the white headstones in the early morning light, alone with no sound but the birds and a distant train, you have to wonder if we’re all so very different. If maybe, rather than different, we’re just stubborn.
Quiet company.
Still. I know it’s complicated, I have strong opinions too. Things that seem so obvious to me. But, it turns out, things seem obvious to the other side too.
Talking louder doesn’t make you right. Or wrong for that matter. Just louder.
Expressing an opinion.
In this quiet place, on this quiet morning louder seems obscene. Even the birds and animals that roam here at night are quietly moving to the outskirts as the sun comes up, willing to give the place back to the humans for their special day. We might learn from them how to share the world.
Live and let live. Both sides. Everyone.
Time to move on.
It’s easier to listen in the quiet, and it’s quiet out here. So many people, so many families represented. So many stories to be told if we care to listen.
Missed every day.
The folks out here cared enough to give a part, or the whole, of their lives to keep this country safe. And strong. We should care enough not to harm it now. We need to stop yelling, trying to make our point, and quiet ourselves the better to listen.
Sometimes it’s hard to let the light in.
So many people are missed this holiday weekend. So many families bear the burden and deserve our respect and understanding.
Dreams, achieved or not, make the world worth living.
Both sides must move toward the middle in order to preserve what these families gave to us.
Both sides.
Life is made of shadows and light together.
It’s a choice we each have to make within ourselves. Find a quiet place this weekend and think about what it all means to you.
The light will always shine.
And if your family is missing someone today…know that we’re all out here sending you hugs.
You are all so nice to be worried and I appreciate all the helpful suggestions about my lost pictures. I should have been more clear in telling you I do have all the pictures on the old laptop backed up on an external drive. I just never deleted the files on the laptop. I have a hard time deleting anything.
This is the way my birdfeeder looks when I’m shooting through the window, there are often reflections that bisect the feeder, but this was my first sighting of what I thought was a juvenile rose-breasted grosbeak. They love safflower seeds. Notice there are none on the feeder.
I also have most of the pictures over here on the new laptop too. So really, there was no reason not to delete a boatload of stuff off the old laptop to make room for the few pictures I wanted to find.
So I did.
I put some safflower seed out. And I waited. The cardinal was very pleased, it’s one of his favorites too.
I found most of what I remembered and downloaded those to the old laptop, then looked at them over there and emailed myself a few of them which I then downloaded to my new laptop.
I waited while other birds showed up looking for lunch.
Seems convaluted but it sort of worked. The hardest part was trying to find the photos I remembered from a couple weeks ago looking at little thumbnail images. But I got most of it.
I think.
Lots of other birds showed up.
I wonder why I have such a hard items deleting stuff when I know it’s being stored somewhere else and it’s just taking up valuable space.
And when I’m taking new pictures and sorting through them the image has to be really really bad for me to delete it. And if it’s family or Katie, well, even really really bad images get to stay.
Finally! See him down on the baffle, right at the level of the deck railing in this shot. See the beginning of the rose patch on his breast? He’s not at all sure about all the bird activity up above. In fact that might be another grosbeak landing!
Why is that?
I think one of the reasons I love taking pictures is that it preserves that moment in time, a moment that is already gone by the time the shutter shuts. And each moment seems so precious that even if the image is bad it’s still some sort of preservation.
Finally they both showed up. (This is the other one, and possibly an adult femail.)
I don’t think most people feel this way and I wonder where it comes from.
Anyway, today’s images are brought to you from deep in the memory card and a couple weeks ago when I had a juvinile rose brested grossbeak at the feeder. Maybe I had two, there’s one image with one on each end of the feeder.
They were adorable to watch.
They were only here for two days and I’m glad I got to watch them and capture their cuteness before they went on their way. I hope they come back next spring!
Immature male cardinal? Or just an older molting guy?
